Gerson Aquerri Brings Toys to Life for Fun Fisher Price Campaign

Gerson Aguerri is bringing the toys to life in the 'Let's Be Kids' campaign for Fisher-Price with the collaboration of Wieden+Kennedy. CANADA chose Activity Book, Linkimals, Ice Palace and Busy - but there is more to the campaign: six pieces with different cuts of two of them - making it eight. Each spot its full of kids material, making them really fun and enjoyable. 

Director Gerson shares more about the project: 

Q> What did you like the most about creating this piece? 

Gerson> This has been one of the projects in which I have been able to enjoy the most. The scripts were very well written. They were fun and subtle and were posed in an aesthetic universe with which I felt very comfortable. They were aimed at parents, but any child could enjoy them. I took it as a technical challenge not to use any type of CGI to animate the characters and it was incredible to have the participation of the animators of “Talk to the hand” who modified the original toys and gave them life by achieving everything that the script gave us. At certain times there were up to four people animating a single character at the same time, so it was necessary to shoot endless layers, but I am very happy with the end result and that I have opted to make it all real. I think that puppet animation has a special warmth that we wouldn't have been able to get if we had followed a CGI route. The first commercial we shot was for “Colouring Book”. It was amazing to see an inanimate object like a book come to life and even have a personality of its own. We really enjoyed shooting it as if we were watching a live puppet show. From there we were all looking forward to seeing the next show with the other characters.

Q> What inspired you to create this piece?

Gerson> I have always loved all of Jim Henson's creatures and the movies of the 80s and early 90s where all the effects and characters were achieved in a practical way. From Gremlins to Alien through the Ghostbusters. If a creature was needed, it had to be built and animated by physical means, and just knowing that this character exists in tangible reality, even in an inanimate way, makes the experience of seeing it much more intense and real. . Its relationship with the environment, how the light affects it, the material it is made of, the fact that it can touch or be touched by other characters ... All those little details make the experience a little more intense and lively in the end. in a little more real way.

There is a scene in the movie 'Antman' in which Antman fights an enemy inside a room with a little toy train. There is a visual gag that I love, and that very well sums up the idea behind these spots; While the camera maintains Antman's point of view, the scene feels fast-paced, with action, explosions ... and when it is about to reach the climax in which the train is going to derail, the camera cuts to a wide shot of the room From a normal eye-level point of view and all the tension disappears and we only see the reality of a little toy train going off the track in a ridiculous way. I love that idea of how they use the change of point of view there to make a visual joke.

Q> What was your creative talent hoping to achieve with the project?

Gerson> It was clear to me that I wanted to use the real, slightly modified toys and not 3D animations of them or mock-ups. On the other hand, it was also clear to me that I did not want that decision to limit the possible camera movements or the movements of the characters themselves, so when I proposed the shooting I did it from the idea that we should not limit creativity in this phase of the project and that we would squeeze our brains later to find a way to do it.

We finally found a way to solve all the challenges that this very physical approach posed with solutions that were many times much simpler than what we might have supposed at first.